Dabura

This DeKeyser-Daley pairing. Good Lord.

End of 2nd. Tied 2-2. Leafs were the better team this period. I miss Rasmussen.

Glendening! (Backhand shot.)

Hicketts is absolutely NHL-ready.

Our power play is in midseason form. Daley has not impressed me. The Daley-DeKeyser pairing is probably not going to work out. They somehow left two Leafs alone below the hash marks when we were attempting to break out, which resulted in an easy goal for Nylander.

End of 1st. 1-1. Outshooting them 15-3.

Nyquist! Great setup by Z.

I reserve the right to invoke his authority when it supports my arguments.

Eh, fair enough. He hasn't wowed me, but I don't really want him to wow me. When he wows me (flashy, dramatic saves and such), it's usually because he's been caught out of position and forced to try make a low-percentage desperation stop. I want him to be more like Howard: cool, calm, collected, clean, efficient, consistent, stopping the pucks he should be stopping. I want him to be less of an athletic, reactive goalie and more of an economical, positionally sound goalie. To me, it looks like he's making that change. He's allowed some goal against, but he's also been hung out to dry many times. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2017/09/28/red-wings-let-lead-get-away-fall-blackhawks/106099296/ Goaltender Petr Mrazek stopped 37 shots, as the Red Wings were outshot 41-34. “He (Mrazek) was excellent,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “You can’t give up two back-door goals, that’s no way, no chance, you have to make sure you give him (a goaltender) a chance to make the save. He was excellent.”

Yeah, Mrazek has actually looked really good. The scores are misleading. Listed as the top pairing (source), but I wouldn't be surprised if the DeKeyser-Daley pairing gets the most minutes. I believe the plan for opening night is to have DeKeyser-Daley, Kronwall-Green, Ericsson-Jensen/Ouellet as our pairings.

I'll let you have the next one.

Tonight's lineup: Tatar Zetterberg Nyquist Mantha Larkin Frk Helm Nielsen Sheahan Booth Street Glendening Ericsson Green DeKeyser Daley Ouellet Hicketts Howard McCollum Toronto will be icing their full NHL lineup, so this should be pretty interesting.

I'd say Martin Hanzal is looking like a not-unreasonable projection at this time.

It's still early days, but it's looking like I'll ultimately have to eat crow on this. And that makes me very happy.

Rasmussen has really impressed me. He's much closer to being NHL-ready than I'd figured he'd be. If this were one of 15-20 other organizations, he's probably on the opening night roster. But we don't really have room, and another year of major junior is probably what's best for his development anyway.

"He's European, but he plays a physical game." I fear this is the same dingus who favorably compared Witkowski to Zetterberg during the previous Wings-Blackhawks game.

No FS-D broadcast. Tons of empty seats. I AM SO PUMPED RIGHT NOW YOU GUYS.

I just want to say that I love that there's NHL hockey in Vegas now. Should be interesting. Hopefully it works out for the League and the sport and the city.

halp me rasmussen ur muh only hope

Tonight's lineup (woof): Booth Sheahan Street Abdelkader Rasmussen Parenteau Lorito Holmstrom Sadowy Campbell Elkins Witkowski Sulak Sproul Lashoff Hronek Kronwall Russo Mrazek Coreau Jensen and Svechnikov are out for the remainder of the preseason. Jensen has a bruised thumb and I believe Svechnikov took a knee to the head in his last game. Blashill's hoping Jensen will be ready by October 5th.

Fortunately for us, trades are hard.

Vikings, bruh.

To be fair, Frk is plenty gritty. Probably not PK material, but if we're just talking forechecking ability and hard-nosed play, he can do that. He likes throwing his weight around and will battle for pucks and positioning. He'd probably be a liability on the defensive side of the puck, but the same could be said of Glendening.

It's looking like Frk is on track to earn a roster spot... http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2017/09/26/detroit-red-wings-dennis-cholowski/704355001/

I like where your head's at. Granted, it's a lot of "if"s. A whole lot would have to go right. The stars would have to align. But I will say this: Holland has been quietly building up a small army of very promising young players, all while missing the playoffs a grand total of once. Larkin, Mantha, Athanasiou, Svechnikov, Rasmussen, Cholowski, Hicketts, Hronek, Saarijarvi, Petruzzelli...while we might not get a single true franchise cornerstone player out of what we currently have in the pipeline and on the roster (though, it does kinda feels like we're on the verge of something special with Mantha, doesn't it?), we should have an abundance of really good young players at some point in the near future. We're not getting back into serious Cup contention without elite talent, but elite players can only do so much on their own. Depth wins Cups; you need elite talent and you need lots of good non-elite players. My point being: when we eventually find a franchise cornerstone player or two, we should already have a pretty solid supporting cast for him/them. Even if we don't get Tavares or Dahlin, if we keep plugging along and doing what we're doing (drafting and developing solid-if-unspectacular talent), we might be able to bypass the long, painful rebuild. I like the idea that we'll simply need to get lucky once or twice in one or two of the next three entry drafts. I like the idea that we're going to have the supporting cast and all we'll need is that/those one/two special player(s). If we're going to be as bad as many people think we are for the next few years, then it's probably only a matter of time before we get that elite talent from the draft. Could be as early as next summer. Maybe we do get Dahlin. Svechnikov or Veleno would be an outstanding consolation prize. Hope! It springs eternal! (inb4 "Hope is not a strategy")